Leading the Beast Home by Daryl Muranaka

A beautiful collection of poetry, full of echoes and transitions that create moments of resonance causing these poems to vary in speed and delivery. They unload all at once, only to reload on a second read. In some ways, these poems remind me of mechanical poetry, poems constructed by piecing together fragments of language, only to change and then reform, suddenly emerging with a surprise. There are interesting things going on here, styles that seem divergent and then suddenly harmonious, voices that seem deeply rooted in the poet, then become a chorus we sing together. These poems are thought-provoking and a deserve a place in the Prolific Press International Chapbook Series. Read these poems.
-Glenn Lyvers, Masthead (Prolific Press Inc.)

Before “settling down with a job and family,” Daryl Muranaka spent nearly ten years wandering around the world, learning from the cultures and peoples he encountered while contemplating the promise of America, the meaning of being an American. In Leading the Beast Home, he reflects on those revelations, springs forth with labored epiphanies, hauls up from guttural places those ideas and lessons birthed from the soil of his adventures. He examines his own life by both exploring and defying the American stereotypes he embodies, never taking for granted the luck and occasional second and third chances he’s received.